Recent Articles – Page 61 – Old Magazine Articles

Japan’s Rebellion Against Western Fashions (Current Opinion Magazine, 1922)

Contrary to the headline written above, this interesting article does not simply discuss the (temporary) Japanese rejection of European and American clothing in the Twenties but also touches upon earlier days when Western styles were fully embraced by the nobility of that country.

There is in Japan a growing revolt against European clothing…The Japanese have endured agonies in their efforts to get our hats, our trousers, our corsets…

Japan’s Rebellion Against Western Fashions (Current Opinion Magazine, 1922)

There is in Japan a growing revolt against European clothing…The Japanese have endured agonies in their efforts to get our hats, our trousers, our corsets…

Alan Seeger: He Did Not Fail That Rendezvous (The Art World, 1917)

Although the U.S. President Woodrow Wilson asked Americans to be neutral in thought and deed on all matters concerning the war in Europe [before to April, 1917], the sympathies of the American people firmly stood with the French and their allies. Whether they served as soldiers or non-combatants, the American public was proud of those young Americans who expressed their outrage by volunteering to serve among the French or British armies. Numbered in that group was the Poet Alan Seeger (1888 – 1916), who fought with the French Foreign Legion and was killed on the Somme. The following poem was written by Grace D. Vanamee (1867 – 1946) in response to Seeger’s very popular poem I Have a Rendezvous with Death (North American Review, October, 1916).

Gas Attack Horrors (NY Times, 1915)

French novelist Pierre Loti (né Julien Viaud: 1850 – 1923) filed this dispatch from a forward aid station in the the French sector where he witnessed the suffering of the earliest gas attack casualties:

A place of horror which one would think Dante had imagined. The air is heavy, stifling; two or three little night lamps, which look as if they were afraid of giving too much light, hardly pierce the hot, smoky darkness which smells of fever and sweat. Busy people are whispering anxiously. But you hear, more than all, agonized gasping. These gaspings escape from a number of little beds drawn up close together on which are distinguished human forms, above all, chests, chests that are heaving too strongly, too rapidly, and that raise the sheets as if the hour of the death rattle had already come.

Click here to read about the new rules for warfare that were written as a result of the First World War – none of them pertain to poison gas.

Reprimand from the Trenches (Cambridge Magazine, 1916)

This letter was clipped from a German newspaper and subsequently appeared in a British magazine some months later; it was written in response to a letter from a 13 year-old German girl who wrote to her brother at the front. She encouraged him in his sad, murderous work in her letter that was positively dripping with an affected air of trench-swagger. Outraged that his school-age sister should make such a vulgar suggestion, the soldier’s response was admirable and seemed much like the prose of Erich Maria Remarque.

The Anti-Asian Immigration Laws of 1924 (The Nation, 1927)

The Immigration Act of 1924 denied admission to the United States to wives of American citizens if these wives are of a race ineligible for citizenship. Hindus, Chinese and Japanese are ineligible. Hence the curious and cruel fact that while an Oriental merchant with his wife may enter America, the wedded wife of an American-born citizen is held at the coast for deportation.

Putting An End To Child Labor (Pathfinder Magazine, 1937)

A column that recalls the failed efforts to banish child labor by adding a prohibitive amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The effort had the backing of the the American Federation of Labor and the National Child Labor Committee and was opposed by forces on Capitol Hill who felt that the issue was best addressed by each individual state. The opposition was composed of the American Bar Association, The Farm Bureau Federation, the Daughters of the American Revolution and Cardinal William Henry O’Connell of the Boston Archdiocese.

The Dress-Reform Movement and Male Attire (Literary Digest, 1929)

A few short paragraphs from a late-Twenties issue of Literary Digest recalled the terribly unproductive plans of the short-lived dress-reform movement and the frustrating nature of the human male in most matters sartorial:

The male is a shy creature, and has always been particularly fearful of appearing conspicuous…

Click here to read an editorial about the need for reform in men’s attire.

Under-Nourished German Children (Magazine Advertisement, 1922-3)

Attached is a sad advertisement that ran on the pages of THE NATION for a number of years following the end of the war. Posted by a German charity, the ad pictures -what we can assume to be- a starving German child from one of the more impoverished regions of Saxony or Thuringia. All told, the photo and the accompanying text clearly illustrate the economic hardships that plagued post-World War I Germany.

Click here to read an article about the German veterans of W.W. I.

Life in W.W. II Germany (Collier’s, 1943)

This Collier’s article clearly illustrated the gloom that hung over the German home front of 1943:

Nobody escapes war service in Germany. Children serve in air-raid squads; women work very hard…The black market flourishes everywhere. More fats are required, as are fruits and vegetables, for the people’s strength is declining. A report I have seen of Health Minister Conti shows that the mortality rate for some diseases rose 49 percent in 1941 – 1942.

Click here to read about the dating history of Adolf Hitler.